Need
by Jaiaelle
Summary: Oliver and Tess escaped the island...and then? Spoilers for Toxic. Perhaps the first Tollie fic...


**Spoilers for Toxic, if you haven't seen it. May not have gotten the facts exactly right but...whatever. Read and review please!**

It wasn't love.

Not really.

And yet the two couldn't separate themselves from each other and fell headlong into some sort of relationship, where they leaned on each other just to survive.

When he left for work, she stayed in his lush apartment, watching TV for hours on end, filling out job applications, trying to figure out her niche in the new life in which she had landed. The best part of her day was when he would come home. That heart stopping smile would appear on his handsome face and she would launch herself into his arms, peppering said face with kisses. His hands would become entangled in her hair and he would murmur into her ear how he had missed her all day long.

At night, she never went back to her place because his had become home. The thought often crossed her mind that she ought to officially move in with him but, for some reason, she never followed through on the idea.

"Ollie," she whispered into the still of the night on the three month anniversary of escaping that island. "Do you ever feel…" She struggled to find the right words, to describe her emotions, the ones that often assailed her along with memories of her stay on that island. Memories of harsh treatment and a friend, gone forever.

"Yes," he assured her, nuzzling his nose in her hair. "All the time."

When he wrapped his strong arms around her, she felt safe, as she always did with him. That security did not stem only from his physical prowess but also from the sense of understanding that existed between him and her.

No one would understand her quite like he did.

There were days when she wanted to scream, to leave him, to run away. To avenge the death of a friend who had been more than just a friend. Her best friend.

Bitterness grew in her heart but she didn't want it to take over.

On the sixth month anniversary of their escape, she made him a dinner of spaghetti, with homemade sauce, and baked a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, all from scratch. The bitterness that day was especially awful but she hoped Ollie coming home, joyously discovering the meal, would dispel that bitterness.

But he didn't come home until late. It was after eleven when he walked through the doors, eyes landing on the feast that had awaited him. Guilt flashed through his eyes for a moment before he, worriedly, looked for her. When he saw her, he moved quickly across the room, catching her in his arms.

"Mercy, Mercy," he whispered, as if he wasn't calling her by her name but was actually asking her for mercy.

This once she would grant it.

Except she knew that she always would because, despite that occasional desire to leave and never look back, she knew that she had to.

Not because she loved him.

She didn't love him and she knew that he didn't love her.

But she _needed_ him.

"You won't ever leave me?" she questioned him on the ninth month anniversary of the escape, allowing the hope in her heart to show in her eyes.

He stared blankly at her for a fraction of a second before brushing his hand against her cheek. "How could I leave you Mercy?"

As his lips captured hers in a kiss, her mind and heart swallowed his words, believing that they couldn't be anything but absolute truth.

Never once did she think that he might not need her as she needed him.

At least, the thought didn't enter her mind until the day she received the note, the note devoid of explanation, that informed her he was leaving, moving away. She could keep the apartment, he wrote.

That night she clung to the sheets of the bed where she had spent so much of her time with him and wept. Wept hot tears from a bitter heart. As each tear fell, a new resolve grew. Never again would she let herself need anyone as she had felt she had needed Oliver Queen.

The next morning, she left the apartment, for good, and her eyes flicked to the calendar.

It was the year anniversary of the day they had escaped the island.


End file.
